Munnar · Overview · 14 min read

Munnar: An Introduction to the High Ranges

Rolling tea gardens, mist-filled valleys, the highest peak in South India, mountain goats and wild elephants, a history of planters and tribal peoples, and an ecology found nowhere else. An introduction to Munnar, with links to everything we have written about it.

By GK Global, Adimali, Munnar · Trails & Tales by GK

Climb the road from Kochi into the hills, past waterfalls and spice gardens, and somewhere above Adimali the air changes. It grows cool and fresh; the forest gives way to slopes covered with neatly clipped tea bushes, rolling away over ridge after ridge like a green sea; mist drifts through the valleys; and in the distance, the great rock dome of Anamudi rises above everything. This is Munnar, the best known hill station in Kerala and one of the most beautiful places in India.

The land

Munnar lies in the High Range, the high plateau at the southern end of the Anamalai hills, where Kerala meets Tamil Nadu. It is a land of steep ridges, deep river valleys and rolling uplands. To the north, the plateau of Eravikulam rises to Anamudi (2,695 m). To the east, the hills end abruptly at the edge of the Western Ghats, at viewpoints such as Top Station and Kolukkumalai, from where you look down to the plains of Tamil Nadu. To the northeast, the land drops into the dry rain-shadow valley of Marayoor and Chinnar. To the west and south, wooded slopes fall away towards Adimali and the Cardamom Hills.

Rivers rising in these hills, including the Muthirapuzha, flow west to join the Periyar, Kerala's longest river, while the Pambar flows east into Tamil Nadu. Their waters are held back by dams at Mattupetty, Kundala, Anayirangal and elsewhere, and generate electricity at Pallivasal, the site of Kerala's first hydroelectric project.

Climate

Munnar's altitude gives it a cool climate throughout the year. Days are mild, and nights can be cold, especially from December to February, when frost sometimes whitens the grass on the highest estates and temperatures can fall below freezing. Most rain falls in the southwest monsoon from June to September, often in heavy, persistent downpours, with a second, smaller rainy season in October and November. Mist and cloud can roll in at any time of year. (Read our article on Munnar's climate and how it is changing.)

History

People have lived in and around the High Range for thousands of years, as the Iron Age dolmens of Marayoor show. The forests and grasslands were the homeland of the Muthuvan and other tribal communities, whose descendants still live in the hills. (Read about the tribal communities of Munnar.)

In 1877, the British official John Daniel Munro obtained a lease of the Kannan Devan Hills from the chief of Poonjar, and planters began clearing the forests to grow coffee, cinchona and then tea. In the 1890s, the Scottish firm of Finlay Muir & Co. took over and formed the Kanan Devan Hills Produce Company, which built roads, a railway and an aerial ropeway, and turned the High Range into one of India's great tea districts. The great flood of 1924 destroyed much of the old town and its railway. In 1964 the Tata group joined Finlay, and later took over its tea business; in 2005, the estates passed to the Kannan Devan Hills Plantations Company, in which the workers themselves are major shareholders. (Read about the tea workers who made Munnar, the women's strike of 2015, Pembilai Orumai, and land and law in Munnar.)

Many people still recall the town's history in its buildings, from CSI Christ Church and its cemetery to the Masonic Lodge Heather. (Read our articles on the history of Munnar, the early European settlers and the bridge tragedy of 1984.)

Tea

Tea is Munnar's signature. Its estates, mostly between about 1,400 and 2,400 m, cover the hills in a quilt of clipped bushes divided by roads, paths, silver oak shade trees and the long lines of workers' houses. Most of the tea is plucked by hand by women workers, many of them descended from families who came from Tamil Nadu to work on the estates more than a century ago. The tea factories process the leaf into black tea, and the Tea Museum at Nallathanni tells the story of the industry. (Read our guide to Munnar tea.)

Flora

Above the tea, Munnar still has fragments of its original vegetation: montane grasslands and the stunted evergreen forests called sholas, a mosaic found only in the southern Western Ghats. Lower down, wet evergreen forest covers the western slopes, and dry deciduous forest and scrub cover the rain-shadow valleys to the east, including Kerala's only natural sandalwood forest at Marayoor. The hills are rich in orchids, balsams, rhododendrons and wild flowers. Most famous of all is neelakurinji, which turns the hills blue once every twelve years; the last mass flowering was in 2018, and the next is expected around 2030. (Read about the shola national parks.)

Fauna

Munnar is one of the best places in India to see wildlife unique to the Western Ghats. The Endangered Nilgiri tahr lives on the cliffs of Eravikulam, where 841 were counted in 2025. Wild elephants, gaur, sambar, leopards and occasionally tigers move through the forests and estates; the tuskers Padayappa and Arikkomban have become famous. The hills are home to endemic birds such as the Nilgiri pipit and the white-bellied sholakili, hornbills in the forests below, and a wealth of butterflies, moths, frogs and insects, including cicadas only recently described by science. (Read our articles on wild animals, birds, hornbills, the white-bellied treepie, butterflies and moths and cicadas.)

Protected areas

Munnar is surrounded by a network of protected areas managed by the Munnar Wildlife Division: Eravikulam National Park, the Anamudi Shola, Mathikettan Shola and Pampadum Shola national parks, the Kurinjimala Sanctuary and the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary. Beyond them lie the tiger reserves of Periyar and Parambikulam and Tamil Nadu's Anamalai, and the Thattekkad Bird Sanctuary in the foothills.

Main sights

• Eravikulam National Park (Rajamala): Nilgiri tahr and grassland views; closed in February and March.
• Mattupetty Dam and Echo Point: reservoirs lined with tea and forest, about 13 km from town, with boating and the Indo-Swiss livestock farm.
• Kundala Lake: a reservoir further along the Top Station road.
• Top Station: a viewpoint on the Kerala–Tamil Nadu border at about 1,700 m, once the top of the tea ropeway. (Read about Kurangani below it.)
• Pothamedu viewpoint: about 6 km from town, over tea, coffee and cardamom.
• Tea Museum, Nallathanni: the history of tea in the High Range.
• Waterfalls: Attukad, Lakkam, Cheeyappara, Valara and more. (See our guide to Idukki's waterfalls.)
• Kolukkumalai and Meesapulimala: sunrise over the clouds at one of the world's highest tea estates, and the trek to one of South India's highest peaks. (Read about Kolukkumalai and Meesapulimala.)
• Marayoor and Kanthalloor: dolmens, sandalwood, jaggery and temperate fruit farms.
• Heritage: Christ Church and the town's old churches and temples, the High Range Club, Devikulam and the Kuthirayala cave temple.

(See also our Munnar sightseeing guide, our guide to trekking and hiking, our guide to parks and adventure, and our jeep safaris.)

Ecology and challenges

Munnar's beauty is also fragile. Over the last 150 years, much of its original forest and grassland has been replaced by tea, eucalyptus and wattle plantations, reservoirs, roads and towns. The remaining habitats are broken into islands, and wild animals increasingly come into contact with people. (Read about human–wildlife conflict.) Tourism has brought prosperity but also crowding, construction on steep slopes, traffic and waste. The steep hills are prone to landslides in heavy rain, as the tragedy at Pettimudi in 2020 showed, and the climate is changing. (Read about Munnar's environment.)

The future of Munnar depends on protecting what remains of its forests, grasslands and rivers, on managing tourism wisely, and on the well-being of the people who live and work in its hills.

When to visit

• September to March: the most popular season, with clear, cool days; December and January are the coldest.
• April and May: warmer, busy with holidaymakers from the plains.
• June to August: the monsoon: green, misty and dramatic, but very wet; check weather alerts before travelling.